FREE ESSAY ON MARK TWAIN'S GREATEST DOWNFALL

MARK TWAIN'S GREATEST DOWNFALL

Mark Twain's Greatest Downfall
Mark Twain is one of the greatest humorists and writers that the world has ever seen. 
Mark Twain had a natural ability to portray the lives of real people and also add a
humorous twist
to their lives. As most people know, Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens. Samuel
Clemens, despite his fame from his books and short stories, did not have success with
his
financial dealings. Samuel Clemens was a regular man who took financial risks and
suffered
from them greatly.
Samuel Clemens was born the son of a Missouri lawyer, married Olivia Langdon, wrote
various books, short stories, and other stories. He gave various lectures and traveled to
many
parts of the world. His life was always moving, always traveling from place to place. He
was
never happy with the success and fame that writing had given him. He was skilled in
taking
financial risks that probably wouldn't turn out. He was always seeking another source of
income
or a way to get rich. Hot-tempered, profane, wreathed in tobacco smoke, enthralled by
games
and gadgets, extravagant, sentimental, superstitious, chivalrous to the point of the
ridiculous-he
was all these things (Kunitz 160).
One example of Twain's first deals involves a patent that a friend had talked him into
participating in. Twain lost a lot of money, but managed to continue with his financial
dealings. 
In 1906, Twain wrote about his first deal who suckered him into a patent that would
eventually
cost him $42,000 in the long run.
After trying to work with patents over several occasions, Twain tried his luck with
machinery. Like the other investment, he had to put out a lot of money. Twain discusses
what
occurred with the machinery:
Meantime, another old friend arrived with a wonderful invention. It was an engine or a
furnace or something of the kind which would get out 99 per cent of all the stream that
was in a pound of coal. I went to Mr. Richards of the Colt Arms Factory and told him
about it. He seemed to be doubtful about this machine and I asked him why. He said,
because the amount of stream concealed in a pound of coal was known to a fraction and
that my inventor was mistaken about his 99 per cent. He showed me that my man's
machine couldn't come within 90 per cent of doing what it proposed to do. I went away
a little discouraged. But I thought that maybe the book was mistaken and so I hired the
inventor to build the machine on a salary of thirty-five dollars a week, I to pay all
the
expenses to build the machine. Finally, when I had spent five thousand on this
enterprise
the machine was finished, but it wouldn't go. It did save one per cent of the steam that
was in a pound of coal but that was nothing (Neider 229-230).
Twain also rejected the stock of the invention that became a huge success. This
invention was called the telephone, and the agent of Graham Bell tried to get Twain to
buy some
of the stock. He could have made a fortune with the telephone, but chose other
investments that
would cost him a lot of money. He refused to buy a paltry amount of the telephone
company
from Alexander Graham Bell at a real bargain-the small amount would have brought in
$190,000
later. Perhaps this is why Mark Twain was so disgruntled (Howards 74). Twain relives the
experience when the telephone stock was introduced to him and after it became a success:
He was with Graham Bell and was agent for a new invention called the telephone. He
believed there was great fortune in store for it and wanted me to take some stock. I
declined. I said I didn't want anything more to do with wildcat speculation. Then he
offered the stock to me at twenty-five. I said I didn't want it at any price. He became
eager-insisted that I take five hundred dollars' worth. He said he would sell me as much
as I wanted for five hundred dollars-offered to let me gather it up in my hands and
measure it in a plug hat-said I could have a whole hatful for five hundred dollars. But
I
was the burnt child and I resisted all these temptations. That young man couldn't sell
me
any stock but he sold a few hatfuls of it to an old dry-goods clerk in Hartford for five
thousand dollars. We later saw that clerk driving around in a sumptuous barouche with
liveried servants all over it-and his telephone stock was emptying greenbacks into his
premises at such a rate that he had to handle them with a shovel (Neider 232-233).
These investments caused a strain on Twain's financial standing. After many tries with
various inventions, Twain finally found achievement in a type of scrapbook. The
scrapbook,
which was patented, was finally going to give Twain some monetary relief. Twain did
invent a
self-pasting scrapbook, which was made in several sizes and sold well and made a profit.
The
pages had dots and pressed the picture in place. These books were particularly good for
persons
who wanted to paste in clippings which covered the pages with no margin of glue exposed
between columns (Howards 73). Twain patented it and put it in the hands of that old
particular
friend of mine who had originally interested me in patents and he mad a good deal of
money out
of it. But, by and by, just when Twain was about to begin to receive a share of the
money
myself, his firm failed. Twain didn't know his firm was going to fail-he didn't say
anything
about it (Neider 230).
Twain gave money to various investments. Whenever a friend needed money for an
investment, Twain was always willing and eager to lend some. He helped stocks prosper
and
friends obtain a lot of money. He rarely received some of the money that his friends were
taking
in. Mark Twain lacked the dare-devil risking-taking attitude of a man who builds a
fortune on a
business acumen alone, but he was a sucker for anyone needing financial backing. 
Consequently, he took greater risks than many gamblers do. Once he was convinced
something
was a good thing, he stayed with it, hoping to market it and amass a fortune (Howards
72). 
Twain was hoping that his friends would finally pay the money that was rightfully his.
Finally,
he received the money that had been promised he would receive. He drew his check for
twenty-three thousand at once, said it ought to have been paid long ago and that it would
have
been paid the moment it was due if he had known the circumstances (Neider 232).
Twain became his own publisher to help with the numerous financial problems that he
had experienced. He believed his nephew could help with the publishing. Twain comments
on
his dealing with his nephew:
I had imported my nephew-in-law, Webster, from the village of Dunkirk, New York, to
conduct that original first patent-right business for me, at a salary of fifteen hundred
dollars. That enterprise had lost forty-two thousand dollars for me, so I thought this is
a
favorable time to close it up. I proposed to be my own publisher now and let young
Webster do the work. He thought he ought to have twenty-five hundred dollars a year
while he was learning the trade. I took a day or two to conduct the matter and study it
out searchingly. I erected Webster into a firm-a firm entitled Webster and Company,
Publishers-and installed him in a couple of offices at a modest rental on the second
floor
of a building below Union Square, I don't remember where. I handed Webster a
competent capital and along with it I handed him the manuscript of Huckleberry Finn. 
Ten years has elapsed and Webster was successful with Huckleberry Finn and a year later
handed me the firm's check for fifty-four thousand five hundred dollars, which included
the fifteen thousand dollars capital which I had originally handed him (Neider 233-236).
Twain was prosperous when he was publishing his own books. When he went to
publishing other people's books, Twain had another downfall. He became his own publisher
by
putting money into the firm of Charles L. Webster & Company, which prospered for a time
but
which was to fail disastrously in the end. It is no wonder that the teeth of life,
gnawing at even
so powerful a figure, gradually began to wear it away (Johnson 196). Twain started
publishing
others after an episode with General Grant. General Grant was trying to find someone to
buy his
memoirs and publish them, but his publisher was trying to sell them for an unrealistic
price. 
Twain decided that he would help out the general. His recollections are quoted in the
following
lines:
Then I had an idea. It suddenly occurred to me that I was a publisher myself. I had not
thought of it before. I said, "Sell me the memoirs, General. I am a publisher. I will
pay
double price. I have a checkbook in my pocket; take my check for fifty thousand dollars
now and let's draw the contract." He laughed at that and asked me what my profit out of
that remnant would be. I said, a hundred thousand dollars in six months. He was dealing
with a literary person. He was aware, by authority of all the traditions, that literary
persons are flighty, romantic, unpractical, and in business matters do not know enough
to
come in when it rains or at any other time. He did not say that he attached no value to
these flights of my imagination, for he was too kindly to say hurtful things, but he
might
better have said he looked it with tenfold emphasis and the look covered the whole
ground. We had a long discussion over the matter. So the contract was drawn and
signed and Webster took hold of his new job at once (Neider 242-246).
Clemens was determined to a double act of piety and commerce by publishing Grant. "I
wanted
the General's book," he said, "and I wanted it very much." He got it, too, after
strenuous
wooing, but he thereby became, in eventual terms, a party to his own undoing (Kaplan
130).
Twain then, after Grant's book was published, decided he had enough of the publishing
business. His partner, Webster, did not like any of the books that Twain thought should
be
published. Webster refused all of the books that Twain and his friends tried to give to
him. 
Twain then gave Webster a twelve thousand dollar check and left him for his own business.

Twain was still involved with the company, but Webster was no longer involved with it. As
the
business began to prosper again, things began to turn for the worse. Webster and Company
failed and owed Twain and Mrs.Clemens thousands of dollars.
Twain's biggest and most infamous investment was the Paige Typesetter. The Paige
Typesetter was in competition with the Mergenthaler Linotype machine, which later became
the
industry standard. The Paige worked efficiently, but the Linotype had a better marketing
campaign. "The machine worked, and worked efficiently," says Ken Ljunquist, a professor
of
American literature at the Worcester college, and one of the advisers of the Paige
project. 'The
reasons for its failure were not mechanical. The Linotype just took over the market"
(Condon
INTERNET). Twain, however, would not grasp that the other typesetter would be more
successful. He put a great deal of hard work into this new project. He devoted about
fifteen
years and two hundred thousand dollars to Paige machine, using in addition, his
publishing house
as a private bank to finance it. His mistake was in backing the wrong horse in a race for
the right
purse (Kaplan 141).
The Paige Typesetter was the major source for Twain's near bankruptcy. He had
previous financial losses, but none as severe as the one from the typesetter. The
typesetter
caused Twain to lose the most money. Twain wasted at least $200,000 on the typesetting
machine, which is often blamed for bringing him to the brink of bankruptcy in the mid
1890's 
(Condon INTERNET). He believed that the typesetter would bring him millions and he
wouldn't have to write any more. Financial troubles hit the Clemenses in the 1880's,
particularly after Twain invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a mechanical
typesetting
device being developed by Jaimes Paige. The typesetter was a failure, and Twain's
investment
was lost (Johansen INTERNET).
Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was an excellent writer. He was
also very money hungry but didn't have the knowledge or sense to help get the money he
desired. 
Twain never was to become a millionaire. His brain always hot with schemes; he lost the
fortune
earned by books in backing an impractical typesetting machine; then in 1884 he invested
in the
Charles L. Webster Company, a publishing house which made enormous profits from its sales
of
Grant's Memoirs, but gradually failed and went completely bankrupt in 1894, leaving
Clemens
penniless (Kunitz 159). Most people do not remember Twain for his investment losses.
They
do remember him for the excellent stories and novels that he had written. Some have
heard
about the Paige Typesetter and the loss that he incurred from it. But, that is not the
first thing
that comes to mind when someone mentions the name Mark Twain. Fortunately, everyone will
continue to remember his great stories and novels and not reflect on his near bankruptcy
and
ill-fate with investments.
Works Cited
Condon, Garret. "Typesetter Misses Deadline for Success." November 29, 1985. Online. 
Netscape Navigator. Available http://news.courant.com/interact/special/twain/paige.htm.
Howards, Oliver. The Mark Twain Book. Marceline: Walsworth, 1985.
Johansen, Jay. "Maybe it all didn't happend, but the stories are true." Online. Netscape
Navigator. Available http://interact.courant.com/special/twain/himself.htm.
Johnson, Allen. Dictionary of American Biography: Volume II. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1929.
Kaplan, Justin. Mark Twain and His World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.
Kunitz, Stanley J. American Authors: 1600-1900. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1938.
Neider, Charles. The Autobiography of Mark Twain. New York: Harper & Row